An Unlikely Pairing
by TheSummerNightingale
Summary: The Final Battle is over, and Hermione finds herself face-to-face with the person she once befriended for five years - the same person who became a Death-Eater, who she hadn't spoken to in two years - Graham Montague. This is sort of an alternate-ending companion to my fic "An Unlikely Friendship", but it's not necessary to have read that first.


******Okay! So I am feeling very nostalgic right now for my first story that I ever wrote ("An Unlikely Friendship") because I've just reread the Order of Phoenix and got to the part that first made me think of ever pairing up Hermione and Graham Montague.**

******And now I feel incredibly guilty for that less-than-happy ending of that story that I wrote, so this is like the alternate ending that I once imagined up but obviously did not follow through with.**

******Whether you're a reader of my other story, or just a new reader who happened to click on this story with a pairing that you've probably seldom-to-never heard of, I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Searching. Searching.

She was searching.

She didn't know what she was searching for. Once, she would have. Once, the Gryffindor girl who sat with the Slytherin boy in the library, who was forced to go on broomstick rides that she pretended to hate but actually learned to enjoy, whose heart was broken when the boy left to become a Death Eater, once, that girl would have known what she was searching for.

But Hermione Granger wasn't that girl anymore, and Hermione didn't know who she was searching for and what she would find.

She simply knew that his name was Graham Montague.

Their friendship was a strange one. At times, she wasn't even sure if it could be called a friendship. The term seemed so personal, and she hadn't always been certain if he had been close enough to her to be personal.

It became glaringly obvious that he, in fact, _had _been when he left.

Hermione remembered the time in first year when he had approached her. She'd been reading up on Quidditch, vigorously trying to prepare for the upcoming flying lesson. That had been the moment that he flew into her life, distracting her from her reading as he'd plucked out 1000 Ways to Bend Quidditch Rulesfrom the shelf.

There was nothing, Hermione thought as she stepped over rubble, like a book with such a title that could catch her attention quicker.

From that moment, he'd just kept on keeping her company, until he became as prominent a part in her years at Hogwarts as Harry and Ron. Montague had been infuriating, annoying, idiotic, unwilling to listen, and absolutely _obsessed_with Quidditch, but he'd always been charming to her. Kind. Compassionate. Willing to talk with her. Willing to be her friend.

And then he went and became a Death Eater and left her on her own to struggle and build up walls to replace the void aspect of her life that had once been dominated by him and only him.

And now, while Fred, Remus, Tonks, and so many others lay on the cold, stone ground of what was once the Hogwarts Great Hall, Hermione was searching. Searching. Searching for Graham Montague, because even though she hadn't seen him since the end of her fifth year, his seventh year, Hermione knew he was there somewhere within the walls of Hogwarts.

She just felt it.

Hermione suddenly halted in front of a wall. It was seemingly solid, and there was a tapestry that delicately hung on it. A once-beautiful thing that was now tarnished with the results of war. And yet it still hung on the stone wall.

She wiped her sweaty hands on her tattered robes and stepped through the wall.

The sensation was not unlike the one of entering the brick wall at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. It simply felt like nothing.

Hermione's eyes adjusted to the bright light of the completely circular room. In her second year, he had shown her this very room (by unceremoniously pulling her in) after the incident with the Chamber. She still remembered how he'd found the brown book she had torn the page about the basilisk from and brought it to the room so she could repair the book like he knew she'd want to.

"Hermione."

She closed her eyes, not daring to believe it. It could not be his voice calling her name. His voice was never so sad, except for the time where he'd told her about becoming a Death Eater. He could not have come here undetected, especially when most people would know his face to be of the Dark Side.

But most of all, it could not be Montague because he had never, ever, _ever_called her by her first name.

"Granger," the voice repeated gently.

"Montague," she let out without her consent.

A finger touched her arm briefly before pulling away. She was not imagining, then?

Hermione slowly opened her eyes, blinking as a dark figure swam into focus. She was imagining this. She was imagining it. There was no way that he could be here right now, except, except-

There was his crook of a smile. There were his brown eyes, sunken into his head with dark bags underneath, like he hadn't slept for days. There was the broadness of his shoulders, the bulges of his muscles that he had gained from years of being the Slytherin Chaser, and there was the boy she'd been chasing in her dreams for the entire time she'd been on the run with Harry and Ron.

"Montague?"

He nodded. "I knew you'd come here."

"How?" She sounded stronger than she felt. "How do you know I'd know you would be here?"

He grinned, and for a moment, it felt like they were back in the library, sitting across the table and laughing with each other. "Because you're Hermione Granger," he said simply. "You'd remember."

"And how do you know that I didn't come here with others, to capture you?" Her eyes flicked towards his left forearm, where the torn sleeve of his black robes revealed the tip of the Dark Mark.

"Because," he said quietly, shaking his arm so that the sleeve would slip over the Mark. "Because you're my friend."

"You're sure about that?" Hermione raised her voice. "You betrayed me. You went to the other side."

"I didn't have a choice," he surged forward. "My father-"

"You could have told me. Why didn't you tell me? So many times in fifth-year, you could have said something. That time in the Astronomy Tower, when we were talking about the Ministry setting the Dementors on Harry. You could have told me then. And how many of my friends did you kill, Montague? You know, Fred died? Fred. Fred Weasley. He died because of your friends, your people."

She stopped with the hitch of a breath, tears threatening to fall to the ground out of her eyes, like she had seen so many, friend or foe, do in the past few hours.

"I'm sorry about Fred." Montague shifted and winced. "But I didn't kill anyone, if that makes you feel better. I… kind of stayed to the side."

Hermione raised an eyebrow and stated disbelievingly, "You stayed to the side. Like a coward?"

He started to protest but bit his lip. "Yeah. Like a coward."

She nodded and said, "When I knew you, you weren't a coward."

"But I shot spells into the battle," Montague continued. "The Shield Charm, mostly." His tone took on a desperate note when she still did not respond. "I blocked curses from hitting people on both sides. The-the Lovegood girl! I saved her. And, er, Weasley. Him, too."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Thank you," she said.

He shook his head in response. "No, that's nothing that could make up for my other choices."

Hermione pushed past him and stood next to the two red chairs that sat in the room, the only furniture save the wooden table in front of them.

Montague spun around, his fingers lacing and unlacing themselves together. "You're not going to call anyone to come? I'm a Death Eater."

"You sound like you want to be taken away," Hermione said, tracing the arm of one of the chairs.

Montague shrugged. "Maybe being contained would feel nice?"

"Well, I'm not going to call anyone to come, because I still feel like somewhere down there is the boy I knew, and the Montague that I became friends with." Hermione's chocolate brown eyes searched Graham Montague's face. "Please tell me I'm right."

"Maybe."

"You don't seem very concerned about your future," she noted skeptically.

Montague only smiled at her, and the gesture was still dazzling and left a rapid beat in her chest. "Well, it's in your hands."

She cracked a small smile back. She paused before offering quietly, "These past two years. I've missed you."

"You, too." His eyes searched her face and he said in a grim and unforgiving tone, "Malfoy Manor. I heard about it."

Hermione's eyes grew large and she quickly brushed past him again, this time in the opposite direction. She did her best not to blink - when she did, she expected to see red light flashing at her.

Montague's arm darted in front of her form and suddenly, he was pulling her into a hug and she was wrapping her arms around her friend, and he still smelled like the Quidditch pitch, even though he probably hadn't gone there in forever.

"When I heard about it from Malfoy, all I wanted to do was go and kill Bellatrix," Montague murmured into her hair. His arms tensed. "I wanted to more than anything. I could have."

"Good thing you didn't," she muttered, "or you'd be dead right now."

She tightened her grip around him as he said slowly, "When you and Potter were on the run… I was so scared that you were going to die."

"When I was walking here," she whispered in return, "I was so sure… I was so sure that you weren't going to be waiting here."

"Sorry," he said.

"Sorry," she agreed.

And they remained in their little room that hadn't been touched by the violence and war that had been raging outside that serene tapestry that still hung on the wall, hugging each other and basking in the fact that their friend from the other side was alive.

* * *

**Five Years Later**

"See you, Ginny and Teddy!" Hermione waved to Ginny Potter, who was standing at the door, holding a young Teddy Lupin's hand.

"Bye, Weaslette," Montague grinned from beside her. "Bye, Ted."

"Potter!" Ginny called out. "I'm a Potter now."

"Fine. Potterette." He danced away from the snowball that Ginny had just charmed to zoom at his face.

"Idiot." Hermione smacked his arm, and Teddy's laugh of delight could be heard from the porch. She put her hand up in farewell as Ginny gently pulled Teddy back into the house and closed the door.

Montague rubbed his forearm, pouting. "That hurt, 'Mione."

"Poor you," she said sarcastically, then sighed. "Well, I guess it's time to get to work."

"You don't sound very excited about it."

"Yeah," she scowled, "because I have to work with you."

Montague suddenly grinned. "Aren't you so glad that Potter paired us up together for this mission?"

"No."

"I mean, think about it. It's the one mission that an Auror and someone from your department have to work together, and voila, we get paired up!" He smiled happily and twirled a lock of Hermione's brown hair around his finger.

She batted his hand away. "Unfortunately. I still need to get back at Harry for doing this."

Graham snorted. "What are you going to do, make the Weaslette get in some dramatic accident that causes Potter to go and save her?"

Hermione continued, pretending she hadn't heard him speak. "Perhaps I should get him to go on a mission with you… That would be a rather sufficient punishment."

"Hey!"

She grinned, and with a crack, Hermione Apparated to the Ministry of Magic.

He rolled his eyes at the spot she'd been, and when he Apparated himself to the Ministry and opened his eyes, he found her directly in front of him, watching him with a small smile on her face.

"Hurry up, Montague," she said while turning, but he caught her arm and pulled her back.

"Ah, ah," he said with a wagging of his index finger. "What did we say about this surname deal?"

"I can call you whatever I want to?"

"Except 'Montague'." He smiled in satisfaction.

"And why ever not?" Hermione glared at him.

"Because, love, you're a Montague, too."

And the Ministry officials rushing to their work shook their heads, smiling in wonder at the scene of the two young lovers kissing in the hallway. Of course, it had been known for weeks that the War Heroine and the former Death-Eater had married, but people could still hardly comprehend the match. It was just an unlikely pairing.

But to Hermione and Graham Montague, it was just the next step of their unlikely friendship.

* * *

******I really do hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did writing about it! This pairing… I didn't realize how much I missed writing about their friendship until now.**

******I'm hoping that some of you were readers of "An Unlikely Friendship", so this kinda makes up for the ending I made in the that fic. But if you weren't, then I hope this broadened your horizons to this pairing? :D**

******-Summer**


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